The 'L' in BUI'L'D

Listening in BUILD is pretty interesting.

The voices you heard were Anna Wintour who I love to listen to when it comes to creativity especially in the fashion industry, Neil Patel who I have to listen to because of my current classes whose knowledge is also very useful for running a blog, Wuntia, who studied BUILD with me at ALA and Theodora who is learning BUILD for the first time. I cut them out gradually in order of whose voice matters the most to me.

 

Today’s lesson is a listening activity because L in BUILD STANDS FOR LISTEN. Creative right? Yes, thank you. As usual, there is a transcript attached below in case you prefer to read although I highly recommend you listen. I will announce the winners of last week’s bingo game at the end of the audio. Let’s goooo!!

 

Listen

Goal: I actively listen to feedback from potential stakeholders to improve my initial efforts, understanding that learning from failure is a key to success.

 

Listen. You can hear many people and many things- but not all voices carry the same weight when it comes to collecting useful and constructive feedback. They may all be valuable, like you heard at the beginning of this audio- but not as valuable when it comes to a specific project. Here is why you need to filter your feedback;

 

At the end of the day, whatever we’re creating, is for people. These people are the best people to listen to about the solution/business/venture you are BUILDing for them.

 

By human nature, none of us like to feel less perfect than we think we are, so subconsciously or not, we seek feedback from our friends and family or influencers and celebrities or just people who would encourage us. This is very important, and I do not take for granted my friends and family who take time to check this blog whenever I post anything new. Thank you to these people.

 

However, it is highly important, if not more, that we seek, gather, and listen to feedback from the people that we are actually hoping to serve with our projects. After we test our ‘inventions’ each time. Remember at the beginning of the Invent phase I mentioned that it was the beginning of a repetitive cycle- Yes. This is it. You are very likely to go back and forth between Inventing and Listening. As frustrating as it will get, you have to keep it moving- you are BUILDing FOR people- not just yourself so you have to make sure these people actually find It useful or else you’re creating for a market you did not research about.

 

Case Study

So with the BUILDer Class project, because the main goal is to teach BUILD to people who haven’t had the opportunity to study it like I did at school, my priority feedback is what I gather from first-timers. People who have been following the content since I started the blog 4 weeks ago and had no prior knowledge of the BUILD design-thinking methodology until they came here are those whose feedback ranks number one to me.

 

Why? Because if my content is pleasing just my mates who I studied BUILD with at the African Leadership Academy or my faculty friends, I have missed the point, which is to share my knowledge about BUILD right now with people who had not heard of it before. Do you see what I mean?

 

So, apply that to any project you are working on right now.

 

After you created that YouTube channel based on what you identified as your target audience’s need, did you ask the people you created for what they thought about it after your first video? If viewership dropped drastically over time, did you bother to send personal messages to the people you know seemed interested? Did you pay attention to your insights?

 

After you started yet another food delivery service because you realized that although there were already many options, people were looking for XYZ and couldn’t find it, did you even attempt to search for and or reach out to the people who you had seen looking for food although there were seemingly endless options to choose from every day? If your answer is no, how are you sure that your solution is really answering their needs and nobody else’s?

 

If the goal is to assist orphanages, your top priority feedback after you implement your first initiative is the children and staff of the orphanage. What do they think about your initiative? Is it helpful? What can you do better?

 

Personally, I consider this BUILDer Class project as unfinished work. Until I have received as much feedback on each different activity I carry out, I cannot say fully that this is my final presentation. Since I have tried out different media like writing, video, and today's audio, collecting feedback from each of you here right now is a BIG priority for me as it would help me know what serves you better and plan accordingly because you are the center of all of this.

 

Now to my winners! Theodora Lindsay, @judeeverywhere, and @__hajia (on twitter), CONGRATULATIONS! You each have a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes which we can schedule to suit us each. You can let me know if you need any kind of help at any stage or if you just need to bounce off some ideas of me too. Send me a DM!

 

In pure listen fashion, I will love for you to scroll to the bottom of this post, click the link, and fill out a fast 9-question survey with no compulsory questions or text responses. I know we all hate that. It should take about 3 minutes.  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6HP2W3M

 

Thank you for ‘coming to class’ today and I hope we spend the rest of the week listening or planning a listening strategy for later. As always, please leave a comment or feedback below! Enjoy your week!